Tag Archives: funding

As a child, Kayla Lau had an erratic, rapid heartbeat. Her heart would race for a short period of time and then correct itself. Doctors were challenged to pinpoint the cause because her episodes were so brief and unpredictable. When she was in sixth grade, she had an extended episode that landed her in the St. Joseph’s emergency room, and the cause was diagnosed. Kayla had been born with an extra electrode in her heart. Within a few weeks, she underwent surgery at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital.

As her parents, Philip and JoAnn, left the hospital after her surgery, reassured by her physician that Kayla’s problems had been eliminated, they saw a giving thermometer in the lobby marking the fundraising goal for the new Children’s Heart Center. The next day the couple gave a gift to name an examination room in the new center for their daughter. The Laus already had a soft spot for St. Joseph’s. Their second son, Andrew, was born two months premature, and during his first two years of life, they became intimately familiar with neonatal and pediatric care at St. Joseph’s. Philip Lau spends much of his time thinking about hospitals and hospital technology. His company, International Specialists, manufactures circuit boards and components for the medical industry as well as other industries. Philip’s two sons, Christopher and Andrew, have now joined him in the family business, which was founded by his father in 1971.

To relax, Philip plays golf or joins JoAnn at their beachfront condo in Pinellas County. The couple spends a few weeks in Hawaii each summer and takes periodic shorter trips to Chicago to get away. “We’re fortunate,” says JoAnn, who met Philip when she worked for his accountant nearly 30 years ago. “We have everything we want, and we want to share with others.”

A mother/baby room at St. Joseph’s Hospital-North is named for Philip and JoAnn Lau.

St. Joseph’s Hospital-North is in the midst of a $75 million expansion that will double the hospital’s capacity and support additional services. But the new construction was not unexpected; in fact, the design of the facility accounted for this anticipated expansion.

Shelled space allowed for the build-out of four additional operating suites with an expected completion date in September. Meanwhile, the hospital will add two more patient care floors that will provide 54 more private patient rooms per floor. The additional beds will be allocated for 48 progressive care and 60 medical-surgical beds. This work is already underway with a completion date set for the first quarter of 2020, just in time for the hospital’s 10th anniversary.

In the hospital’s first seven years of operation, it has experienced a 61% increase. “The growth rate around us is higher than the state of Florida and the nation,” explained Sara Dodds, director, St. Joseph’s Hospital-North Operations. “We are regularly running at capacity. By adding the additional operating suites and patient rooms, we will be able to meet the community’s growing needs.”

Thanks to a grant from St. Joseph’s Hospital’s Foundation’s Philanthropic Women members, our hospitals have added new tools to its team to proactively reduce the risk of hospital-acquired infections. Two new decontamination robots arriving soon at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital and St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital will use ultraviolet radiation to kill up to 99.9 percent of harmful germs and pathogens that may linger on surfaces after routine disinfection. These two units will be added to an arsenal of 5 other units at St. Joseph’s Hospital and deployed primarily in isolation rooms and surgical areas.

The disinfecting robot works by generating ultraviolet (UV) light energy that modifies the DNA or RNA structure of an infectious cell. After a hospital team member cleans a patient room using traditional methods, the remotely-operated unit is rolled in to complete the process. The device’s patented technology calculates the amount of UV light energy needed to disinfect the entire room while taking into account variables such as size, shape, and contents to deliver the precise, lethal dose of UVC needed.

A clinical trial funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that using the Tru-D SmartUVC robot to clean patient hospital rooms reduced the risk of infections due to antibiotic-resistant superbugs such as C. diff and VRE by 30 percent. This advanced germ-fighting technology is just one way St. Joseph’s Hospitals are raising the bar when it comes to the level of care provided to patients.